NEW DELHI: The Central Bureau of Investigation made a string of bribery arrests in the first week of October, from a Mumbai engineer caught waiting for a ₹50 lakh payment to one of the agency's own constables. All of those arrested are presumed innocent until proved guilty in court.
The largest case was in Mumbai. The CBI arrested Vikrant Verma, an executive engineer of the Central Public Works Department in Mumbai, along with his relative Saurav Kumar of Pune, and three people from a Mumbai real estate group: Arvind Semwal, vice-president of the Baya Group of Companies, Chetan Mahajan, a manager, and A. Deshmukh, a partner in a firm under the group, the Free Press Journal reported on October 2.
The agency registered a case on October 1. It alleges that Verma demanded ₹1 crore, later negotiated down to ₹70 lakh, through Kumar, for issuing a no-objection certificate stating that the CPWD had no claim over a plot of land at Wadala on which the group planned a construction project.
The CBI laid a trap the same day, a Thursday, and caught Kumar carrying ₹50 lakh, which he had allegedly received from Semwal on Verma's behalf. Verma was picked up at Vashi in Navi Mumbai, where he was waiting for the money. Mahajan and Deshmukh, who were present, were also arrested.
"It was further found during the investigation that the NOC was issued without an entry in the dispatch register against payment of Rs 50 lakh, with the balance of Rs 20 lakh to be paid after a week," the CBI said. Searches in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Pune recovered about ₹53.87 lakh in cash, in addition to the ₹50 lakh, along with property documents.
In Delhi, the CBI's anti-corruption unit arrested one of its own men. Jay Kumar Singh, a general duty constable at the agency's Bank Security and Fraud Branch, was arrested on October 4 along with a lawyer representing Kolkata businessmen, in what the CBI called part of its internal counter-graft work and "zero tolerance" approach, SSBCrack reported.
According to the FIR, Singh travelled to Kolkata on September 21 on what was described as an official visit, met businessman Ram Chandra Daga, claimed to have information about illegal activities, and demanded ₹20 lakh from Daga and his son Basant Daga by threatening to implicate them in a case. The lawyer later travelled to Delhi "to amicably settle the matter", officials said, and the amount was allegedly negotiated to ₹6 lakh at a meeting in a south-west Delhi mall. The FIR names six people, including the constable, the businessmen, a West Bengal-based middleman and the lawyer, under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
The CBI also arrested a deputy director of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation in Tamil Nadu over an alleged bribe demand, officials said on October 4, and planned to seek transit remand to bring him to Delhi.
In Ara, Bihar, it arrested Purushottam Kumar, a postal official, on October 4 after a branch postmaster, Sandeep Kumar, complained that he and an inspector demanded ₹10,000 to release salary withheld for two to three months; the inspector, Gaurav Kumar, has not been arrested. And in Udhampur, Jammu and Kashmir, a fireman was caught on October 6 accepting ₹15,000, negotiated down from ₹40,000, to process a fire safety certificate for a hotel in Katra, SSBCrack reported.
